Old Soul earns 93 points from prestigious Coffee Review

Congratulations to roaster Ryan Harden and the entire crew at Old Soul for earning 93 points from the prestigious CoffeeReview.com for its Ethiopian coffee called “Aramo Natural.”

In the high-end coffee world, this is a tremendous score – one that not only adds to the prestige of Old Soul, but it puts both the business and Sacramento’s coffee scene in the national spotlight.

In fact, on the website currently, there are only three coffees in the entire country with higher scores (one 95 points, and two at 94 points). Here’s what Coffee Review said in part about this coffee: “ Crisply sweet, refreshing, gently complex. Ripe tangerine, cherry, honey, fresh-cut cedar, hints of port wine and dark chocolate in aroma and cup. Lightly rich acidity; lightly syrupy, lively mouthfeel. Flavor consolidates but still saturates a gently drying finish.”

I happened to drop by Old Soul for an espresso when the low-key Harden learned the news. As luck would have it, I had just bought a refill jar of these beans over the weekend and started my morning with a cup of Ethiopian Aramo at home made with my trusy Aeropress. I’m not sure I picked up on the note of fresh-cut cedar, but to be honest, I’ve never tasted fresh-cut, recently-cut or old-cut cedar. But hey, it was 6 a.m.

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Harden was practically speechless when he got the good news Monday morning.

“I’m kind of overwhelmed a little bit. It’s exciting. I’ve never had a scored coffee before,” Harden said while roasting a new batch of beans at the midtown facility. “It puts us on the map a little bit. I don’t know if here locally it will do much, but as more people read Coffee Review, it gets us known nationally.”

This is the second coffee Old Soul has submitted for scrutiny by the folks at Coffee Review, which is the industry leader at rating coffee. In 2011, Old Soul earned 90 points for that submission. In 2010, Sacramento’s Temple Coffee stunned the industry when it earned 97 points for its Hunapu Antigua Bourbon from Guatemala, the highest score the entire year. That probably had something to do with why Temple was named one of the nation’s best roasters by the Daily Meal earlier this year and one of the country’s top 17 small coffee makers by CNN.

As local coffee aficionados already know, we have an excellent coffee scene in Sacramento. While scores aren’t everything, this latest achievement by Old Soul keeps us in the mix on a national level and gives the city a healthy dose of prestige. Now, who’s going to make the next submission to Coffee Review?

If you’re interested in trying this Ethipoian coffee, the beans are available for sale in the store or online at $18 a pound